President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign is banking on gay donors to make up the cash it’s losing from other groups of wealthy supporters who have been alienated and disappointed by elements of Obama’s first term.

The Obama campaign finance director, Rufus Gifford, was a top California gay fundraiser; the DNC treasurer, Andrew Tobias, is gay; and the White House social secretary — traditionally a key, if unofficial, fundraising job — is also a gay man, Gifford's former partner Jeremy Bernard.

The spur for the gay community becoming an anchor for Obama’s reelection fundraising is a series of policy shifts in 2010. After a year of rocky relations and suspicion from Obama’s gay supporters that he wasn’t really committed to their issues, the last year saw a surge in activity. Along with the high-profile repeal of the military ban, Obama’s Justice Department recently refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. And the administration has taken smaller steps, like gay partner hospital visits and hate crimes legislation, concrete and important gestures that simply weren’t made during the Bush administration.

“It’s ironic — a year ago there was no constituency more unhappy. There was a sea change,” said David Mixner, a veteran New York gay activist, who said that White House actions during the past year had swayed restive gay donors. “You not only will see a united community that will contribute to Obama, but they will work their asses off.”

Professional gay men, with a personal stake in politics and less likely to have children or college funds that would consume their disposable income, have long been key to Democratic fundraising. A rarely told story of Howard Dean’s 2004 rise, for instance, was his early, blockbuster fundraising from gay donors who appreciated his support for civil unions, then a cutting-edge policy.

Gay support is particularly key this year to Obama, whose 2008 campaign raised huge sums from the very rich, just as it did from smaller donors. Now, key categories of supporters have grown leery. The left-leaning super-rich, including George Soros, see Obama as hopelessly compromised and have lost their enthusiasm for him. Some Wall Street and hedge fund executives, tired of being criticized and regulated, have switched sides. Some pro-Israel Jewish donors, a mainstay of Bill Clinton’s fundraising, dislike Obama’s pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu. And rich men on both coasts whom Clinton had accustomed to personal flattery, personal visits and late-night bull sessions have received no such personal attention from the more solitary Obama.

Though some prominent Obama fundraisers said they hope the gay donors will make up for that lost support, the campaign’s official line is that wealthy donors are as supportive as ever, and Democratic insiders stressed that they are aggressively pursuing donations from all groups, including those who’ve been described as disaffected over the past year. Several noted that Obama just had a sold-out Wall Street fundraiser, and there are plans for another one in June, adding that courting support from one group does not mean they are dropping interest in others.

Gay donors, though, have only intensified their support and are expected to participate in unprecedented numbers in a “LGBT Gala” DNC fundraiser scheduled for June 23 in New York.

“He’s coming back up in the estimation of the gay community pretty rapidly, and I think justifiably,” said Ethan Geto, a New York lobbyist and key figure in Dean’s gay fundraising, who said many gay supporters had hoped “don’t ask” would be repealed during the president’s first year in office. “When things didn’t happen in [that] time frame and on the track that Obama had held out hope for, people got very disillusioned,” said Geto. “This was the time to strike.”

Others said that Republican candidates’ shots at gay rights in their attempt to appeal to socially conservative Iowa voters had reminded gay donors of the stakes. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum this week said gays and lesbians shouldn’t have the “privilege” of adopting children, while former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty suggested he would block the repeal of the ban on gays in the military, and Donald Trump compared same-sex marriage to faddish golf gear.

“Our community has tasted change, and it’s hard to conceive of going backward,” said Fred Sainz, the vice president for communications for the Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay rights group. “It’s hard to conceive of that coming to a screeching halt or reversing — and so it’s a subject of great energy for members of my community and especially those with great resources.”

“Any reservations that a significant number of donors might sit this out have been answered by Donald Trump and the fools in the Republican Party,” said Mixner. “They have become so vehemently anti-gay.”

The support for Obama among gay rights activists isn’t complete. The last two years has seen a nascent, noisy pro-gay conservative scene emerge, funded in part by the gay tech investor and libertarian Peter Thiel. Gay Obama critics on both ends of the spectrum note the president has yet to return to the support for same-sex marriage he advertised as a local politician in Chicago in the 1990s, and some donors have turned their focus to state-level marriage fights.

But people involved in campaign fundraising said that key donors in New York and Colorado who have in recent years turned away from national politics in favor of local issues had returned to the Obama campaign in recent months.

“There’s much more receptivity and openness toward the president now,” said Jeff Soref, a prominent gay donor and activist who is among those funding state fights. “It stands to reason that the gay money will be committed to the president’s reelection.”

An earlier version of this story misspelled Fred Sainz's name. Also, the title of DNC Treasurer Andrew Tobias was listed incorrectly.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misstated the relationship between Rufus Gifford and Jeremy Bernard.